


we're so delicate

by mintleaf



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintleaf/pseuds/mintleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara has to cope with multiple losses while still living in the present. Eventually, she discovers she isn’t alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're so delicate

**Author's Note:**

> A look at what could happen between Clara and the Doctor if they had proper time to grieve between Death in Heaven and Last Christmas - also a few favorite parts of S9 reinterpreted for a less bittersweet ending.

*

The mini calendar on her desk says that it’s November, but Clara almost can’t believe it. If she does, then it means a full four months and two weeks have passed since she’s last seen him. She clicks her pen and crosses out yet another completed task. There’s one final item on her to-do list:

_Call Courtney’s parents about her missing homework??_

She’s been avoiding this one; it required delicate lies, and she’s been running out of them lately. She imagines Courtney’s dad asking, “But what happened? Nothing’s changed at home. Is she getting on with her classmates?” and Clara would stare at the calendar’s cheerful pink flower petal design.

That stupid thing is a silent announcement that yes, he’s been living just fine without her this entire time. She can’t even call him, because his number disappeared from her contacts list after their final meeting in the cafe. A week passed before she dialed his number out of memory, but it rang and rang until a disgruntled elderly woman picked up and hissed, “For crying out loud, I don’t want to buy another vacuum.”

But Courtney’s grades were abysmal.

Clara knows she’s a brilliant teacher, but nothing she can say is half as motivating as stepping back in time and meeting the historical figure you’re supposed to write a report on. Which lie did she want to go with, this time? She could say that Courtney just has to open up, that she needs to accept, like Clara has, that the life they have now is all there’ll ever be.

Oh. Her vision is getting blurry. She sighs. No, she can’t tell parents that. She’ll say something nicer

She rummages through her student’s files for the number and jabs it in her phone. One ring, same as all the other times, and then a worried voice - “Ms. Oswald?” then, even more tentatively, “What’s wrong now?”

_**_

Clara’s distracted. The tiniest twinge of exasperation appears when she’s reading a passage from an outdated textbook and it starts to storm outside. They can’t keep still once the echoing thunder energizes them. She loves them, really, but they’re a rowdy and stressful bunch.

She hears herself telling them to focus. They have noses pressed up against the windows, and with each crack of thunder they shriek in delight.

Patience - that’s something she has a lot less of now. Usually, she’d give them time to get it out of their system, then start fresh. Today, she wants them grab them by their collar and drag them back to their assigned seats. She swallows down annoyance, and clears her throat.

What did she do wrong today? Who did she piss off on the ride to work? The rain is overwhelming. The windows are instantly blurry, and tree branches slam against it. The class ooohs.

“Stop it!” she can’t help shrieking. “Just stop it and get back in your seats!”

They all look at her with wide, frightened eyes. She breathes in, and shakes it off. Well, they’re all alert and quiet now.

“Thank you,” she flips to the next chapter. “Let’s do a quick review of what I just read.”

*

On her desk sits a scalding cup of hot chocolate and a peppermint stick melting in it. She watches the red stripes disappear in the liquid before giving it one last stir. It’s the last exam of the year to grade. She’s on top of it. The holidays will bring her some reprieve from this life; she’s planned to spend the stretch of days from Christmas to New Years with them.

The final packet is Courtney’s, written with big block letters and a doodle of some _scrawled flower on the side._

She supposes she has someone to thank that Courtney’s is last. If she had to think about lies to tell Courtney’s mum it would consume her, and she’d sit, imagining what else she could get away with saying. Minutes later, Clara’s halfway through the exam, and something is dreadfully wrong. She hasn’t crossed out a single mistake, only checked off correct information and drew a quick smiley after a particularly insightful sentence.

Her eyes flick to the top of the page - yep, still Courtney’s exam.

She rereads the paragraph. It’s detailed, neat, and with the exception of two spelling errors, is completely correct. Suspicion blooms, but she can’t allow herself to think deeper as to why Courtney’s effort has suddenly tripled.

She chews the rest of the peppermint stick, the crunch of it is so loud that it momentarily drowns out her thoughts.

The second page is littered with smiley faces and the words, “Good!” and “Great job with fixing grammar”, and by the final page Clara’s run out of things to say. It’s perfect.

And...the final extra credit question. She wrote it on the board on a whim, when she was momentarily overwhelmed with a mix of sadness and pride. She hid her smile, thinking that they’d never get it right: “How does Jane Austen take her tea?”

No one is getting those extra ten points; they’ll just have to try and guess again next time. But Courtney, in practiced script, wrote “One cube and a half of sugar, no milk”. The sentence is underlined twice.

Clara stares. She tries to figure out if she’s lost the ability to read cursive, or if maybe Courtney’s cursive is wrong and she meant to write something else.

Could it be a lucky guess? Sure, she’s seen students get lucky by scribbling down any answer all the time. She can recount dozens of time pure luck was on her side - probably even more since she opened the door to a tall hyperactive man dressed as a monk. Courtney’s cursive is too calculated and proud, like she’d recognized Clara’s devious trick and decided she would knock Clara off her ass and taunt her right back for the impossible question.

She thinks back as far as possible. Had Courtney ever mentioned meeting Jane? It wasn’t possible. As far as Clara knew, Courtney had only gone forwards in time, never back.

He liked showing them the future.

**

Monday finally rolls by after an endless weekend of sifting through memories. Maybe there had been a day where she was slammed with meetings, parent calls, and her dad’s missed calls, and she waved him off, so he found Courtney and they went off to sit and have tea with Jane. That seems the most plausible.

There are bulletin boards decorated with writing - Gallifreyan. That’s odd. The mass of circles look almost exactly like the ones that appeared on the control room screen. He once drew them on the dark sky.

“It’s hard to explain,” he warned.

“I’m pretty sure I can figure it out,” she hated not knowing. Even if the explanation took hours and she didn’t understand five words of it, she wanted to hear it, wanted him to try.

She’s nearing the bulletin boards now and reading closely - oh. They’re just circles from maths class. Not even close to what she’d thought. She is often bleary eyed and slower in the mornings.

Clara breathes in reality again, wonders how she let herself get this far.

_*_

It’s time. She plans it so that Courtney is the last student in the room waiting for her exam back. The final bell will ring anytime. She sits behind her desk, back straight, fingers flipping the pages back and forth at a corner.

“Chop chop,” she tries to keep her voice steady. “Don’t want to be the last one still in the building.”

When Courtney pulls it from Clara’s hands, she jerks her arm back, and Courtney, off guard, falls forward.

“Good job. Very good.”

“Thanks.”

“Lucky guess, was it?”

Clara waits impatiently for the answer, but Courtney is putting it in her bag and leaving.

“Courtney, tell me.”

“It’s called the internet,” Courtney sighs, as if Clara lives under a cave. “I read it somewhere ages ago.”

**

Christmas is dreary. No one can contest that, not even when her whole family comes back from caroling rosy cheeked and breathless.

“How’s work, dear?” someone asks.

She shrugs. “Full of brats.”

They get a good chuckle out of that, unable to tell that she actually kind of means it.

To be specific, she only means it in relation to Courtney. Clara has come up with all the threats in her power, and still, Courtney wouldn’t reveal when she met Jane. Clara needs this information, because there are only two options. If Courtney didn’t meet Jane last year, then that means their mutual friend is still hanging around Coal Hill, or even, the whole of London.

“I’ll fail you,” she said one day.

“Oh, please! Try harder.”

Her dad and aunt are shaking off the last of the snow on their coats. Her aunt, still exhilarated, kisses Clara’s face repeatedly. “You seem so sad, my dear. You’ve got to let go.”

“Oh please,” she echoes. “I’ve already let go.”

She smiles even through her aunt’s disapproving gaze. “How about some wine?”

_*_

It’s New Year's Eve, and the walk from the bus stop to her apartment is short but so cold Clara feels like she’ll never know warmth again. She entertains the idea of quitting and taking off to travel - maybe stay in a tropical island somewhere and teach English there for a couple years. She could learn to appreciate long plane rides, layovers, jet lags, even flight delays. If she wants to see the sights, she’ll do it with human limitations, like she was always supposed to.

She could be nearing ninety and he’d be elsewhere on that distant planet, saving an entire species. Or, he would be tinkering with new gadgets and trying to extend their capabilities. She likes to imagine sparks flying all around him before -

Are those sparks now?

A family down the street is cheering. The mother holds a sparkler in each hand and waves her arms in circles. Clara watches the golden lights burn bright and disappear as she turns the corner to her place.

She draws in her curtains and throws off her boots to the side. Her pile of laundry sits in the corner, delicate blouses wrinkling under jeans.

_Oh, darling, please stay, we hardly ever see you. Besides, it’s New Years!_

_I’ll come visit when I can, I promise, but I’ve got to head back now. Love you._

Now it was, for the most part, quiet.

She quickly brushes her teeth and rummages through another pile of clothes in the bathroom for something comfortable. She’s been gone for a few days, so the heater is turned down low. It’s cold; she has to curl up in bed quickly.

Her room is but fifteen feet from the bathroom, but her door is halfway shut. That’s strange, she vaguely notices, because she definitely didn’t leave it like that. She pushes the door and it doesn’t budge.

Her heart races. There is nothing in her room that’s big enough to block the door except for her bed, but that doesn’t make sense.

“I don’t know how you got in, but you should know the police are on their way.” There’s no response. She slams her palms against the door. “You hear me?”

“Besides,” she mutters, mainly to herself, “there’s not much worth taking.” She’s got the bare minimum for living, plus a pair of knitted socks she’d gotten for Christmas from the school board.

She hears something like a door creak, yet her own door hasn’t moved. Someone is escaping from her window, then. She’s lifted her arms to slam the door once more when it’s swung open from the inside.

“What?” she blurts, an automatic reaction she instantly regrets. Not cool, she thinks.

He’s hunched over and wide eyed in surprise, just like her. Like he hadn’t expected to see her even though he just heard her yell. Behind him glows the orange light of the TARDIS like a massive night light in her room. That must be what blocked her door.

He opens his mouth and almost says hi, but his voice croaks.

Where was her voice when she needed it? All that false confidence when she thought she was being robbed is gone. Now she stands, her knees going weak, and her face is twisting as she desperately tries to remember exactly how much wine she drank.

“Hi,” he finally musters.

No way. She’s been slowly dying in this life of classrooms, board meetings, and family gatherings while he’s off flying about and talking down evil lords and bored emperors, and he comes here by mistake, from the looks of it, and she can’t think anymore.

“No,” she says. “No.”

He flinches, just barely, by a tilt of his chin, but she can still read his body language.

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he begins. “I was aiming for Victorian London.”

She stares. Of course it was a fluke.

“I’m …” he’s turning around and taking in her room. Navy wallpaper, her writing desk, a mug of cold tea from the week before, and her single bed with one pillow and one blanket. “What year is this?” he asks.

“That’s convenient,” she says. “It’s just two hours past New Years.”

He makes a face at her non-answer. She goes on. “It’s been six months, Doctor. Not even a card, or however you send cards from Gallifrey, if they even exist there. Not a single note that you’re doing okay. You may be able to drop by, even if you didn’t mean to, but I can’t for you. Do you know how that feels?”

He’s at her desk, taking note of the date from her mini calendar. “Did you move?”

Clara huffs. “Maybe.”

He looks like he genuinely doesn’t want to say this, but -

“Without P.E?”

The nickname is like ice water hurled down from the sky drenching her. No one dares to mention him at work, and she excuses herself from the room when conversations begin to scratch the surface of last year’s 'event'.

“Clearly.”

“I see,” he says, quiet. The mood darkens, and he runs his fingers along a yellowing photo of herself as a five year old, gleefully holding up her golden retriever’s ears.

She doesn’t move from the doorway, just watches him step back and forth in her room and take it all in. The TARDIS takes up nearly all the free space; if she steps in she’ll feel trapped in there with him. As much as she wants it, she’s still having a hard time accepting he’s actually here, as real as she remembers. His hair is longer, fluffier.

There isn’t much left of her room to explore. He stops right before her - he’s so close that she thinks she smells grass, and sees that he has bits of green stuck on side of his neck. She can’t help the quirk of her lips.

He peers closely at her, like he did when they met. He’s wearing that look reserved for solving mysteries. It’s like she’s been thrown back in time - this is too similar to when they first met, when she felt his eyes on her as he tried to figure her out, but didn’t know what to say. She can practically see gears turning in his head from the way he’s staring at her.

No doubt he’s trying to figure out why she’s living in this place, all alone on New Year’s Eve, when he last saw her smiling and promising to live happily with Danny.

She wanted to see him again, but not like this. If she were to hug him now, the way long lost companions do, she might scare him off. Even when they had their last conversation, he stood there and let her hold him, as if he didn’t go to hell just because she asked it of him.

“Clara,” he says.

She looks up and doesn’t dare to move or breathe. The second time he says her name, it’s a whisper, just loud enough for her to hear amidst her thumping heart and blood rushing to her head.

She’s crossed off every day she’s been alone. Some days she’d been more angry than the others, and instead of a single diagonal across the box, she made a large X, and even more rarely would she scribble the entire box red hard enough to poke holes through the page.

His hand reaches for hers. He’s tentative, as if she’d scold him.

Clara is hyper aware that the dress she picked is the one with a whorly blue pattern, purchased because it reminded her of the way the TARDIS left stardust in its wake. She follows his gaze and remembers the plunging neckline.

He stops before she wants him to, but she recognizes the chance he’s giving her. His hand is an inch from hers. _If you don’t want this, I’ll leave. I’ll get back into my box and run away. From here. From you._ In an instant, she’s fed up with uncertainty. His accidental presence has to have meaning; she refuses to think otherwise. Her arms wrap around his neck and it pulls him down to her height. He’s tense and it’s like holding onto a bent statue, cold and rigid, until he sighs and buries his face in her hair.

“Stay.”

Her voice cracks, and her eyes are welling up; this must be why he doesn't like to hug. The grassy scent on his skin is too much. She’s hit with the image of him in a field, running from soldiers with heavy guns, and rolling under a bush for cover as they shout in confusion. “I know you have places to be, but just stay.”

He’s breathing in from the back of her neck and giving her goosebumps.

“I don’t have anywhere to be but here.”

_**_

Her skin burns where he’s touched her. She wonders if he can see the blush in the dark room.

“What do you mean, nowhere but here?” she asks, struggling to keep her tone even. “How’s home?”

He frowns; he thinks she’s prodding, but she won’t back down. He can’t drop by and say things like that. She crosses her arms.

“Home,” he says. “that’s a place I’ll never go.” He sits on her bed as if he’s been to this apartment before and he knows exactly how to make himself comfortable. “I never went home.”

“Never went home,” she repeats. “You found it, and then you decided, no, it’s okay, I’d rather not go back? After all those times you spoke to me about it, all those years spent looking?”

His expression is pained. “I never found it. It’s still lost.”

She feels guilty for making him admit that to her. He hates telling the truth more than she does. He lied to her first about Gallifrey when she tried to tell him Danny hadn’t come back, yet he’s the first to tell the truth now. She supposes she might as well follow along like last time.

“Why aren’t you with him, P.E.?” he asks, before she can speak.

“It didn’t work out,” she says tersely. He laughs.

“Clara, you don't return from the dead for it to ‘not work out’.”

She’s livid. Realization is a sad, sad thing, and she almost wishes he found Gallifrey, because it means she spent unnecessary time wasting away in the walls of her room and only loving her job because she has nothing else to love. Telling this truth is the equivalent of admitting for real that Danny is irrevocably gone.

He brushes away falling tears on her cheek. Is she crying because she knows they made a mistake, or are the tears for his endless search?

“It’s alright.” He lets her fall into him and clutch his shoulders, even as she’s shaking her head at his words.

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? If things had been different, if Danny were still alive, we would’ve worked out just fine.” He recoils. She doesn’t like the way he’s scowling at her, she hates being the bearer of bad news, but it's too late to stop. “He’s been gone since the car accident. Doctor, he never came back. It was his choice to stay dead.”

His eyes roam, studying her tear streaked face, processing all the information he should’ve guessed the moment he saw her single bed and apartment.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Back then, I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” she says sharply. After a moment she sighs. “But I needed some time alone, to get over it.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know,” she replies. There’s a lot of honesty going around tonight - they’ve probably hit their limit. “How about you, are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

*

Clara has been taking inventory of any noticeable change since she noticed the longer hair. It’s minor, little mannerisms in how he speaks and carries himself. She’s learning how to see him - again. The most noticeable difference is how open he’s being, though she’s not ready to put too much hope on one observation.

“You were surprised to see me, but I was yelling.” she notes.

“I couldn’t hear anything from the control room,” he shrugs. “Probably landed a few minutes before you got back.”

She lets him go for that one, there’s just one more item of business.

“You’ve been cheating,” she says. He avoids her eyes. “You’ve been visiting Courtney and taking her places.”

He mumbles incoherently and waves his hands around.

“What’s that?”

“Cheated.” he corrects. “I brought her to September, 1802, months ago. So, no, I’ve not been cheating.”

“You cheated once,” she amends her accusation. “And that was one time too many. We agreed that we were done, for real, and you go off and fly away. Going behind my back and taking my students is -" she holds up Courtney’s perfect exam - “that’s crossing a line.”

“Can you blame me?” he snaps. He hasn’t raised his voice until now. When she essentially told him they’d lied to one another, he was resigned and mostly silent. A sliver of her feels pride that she’s made him lose control, if only for a moment.

“Yes, Doctor. I can,” she says. He makes an annoyed sound from the back of his throat.

“It was my way of making sure you were okay.”

There’s a question that’s been eating away at her. It’s not a competition, who can last the longest without the other, not that it’s even a fair competition when she can’t even know if he’s still alive or not, but she has to ask.

“How long has it been?”

He’s looks directly into her eyes - oh, he’s about to lie, she realizes, but he stops himself. He confesses, “A few decades.”

Clara traces his jaw, fingers hovering over new lines on his skin. In all truth, if she were him, she would cheat, too.

**

Clara pricks her fingertips on the splinters of the TARDIS’ door, partly because the short jolts of pain ground her, keeps her from getting ahead of herself. The warmth of his body against hers was proof enough, but she has to double check and triple check this isn’t a wild dream. He strides over and takes her hand away and holds it tightly.

He pushes open the door, and light spills out into her bedroom. She’ll make sure that for the rest of her life, she has this image burned into her brain. The Doctor, standing tall before her, hair wild and taking on the glow of the TARDIS, so eager, all his ages and personalities showing at once.

“We’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for,” even as he says it and steps backwards into the box, he doesn’t pull her along, lets her make her decision.

As if she was going to say anything but yes.

*

They’re like giddy schoolchildren on the year’s first field trip. He asks her where she wants to go, and she says, “Somewhere fantastic.” They’ve almost arrived at their destination when she looks at her feet and realizes she’s in a thin dress without socks or shoes.

He sends her off to change into something more suitable for travel. She looks down every corridor for her old room, but it’s gone, either refurbished or deleted.

Clara settles for a t shirt, shorts, and sneakers that belonged to someone tall and fond of neutral colors. She returns to the engine room to find him changed also - he’s in a richly dyed burgundy velvet coat.

“What do you think?”

She loves it, and tells him so. “It’s doctor-y. It’s magnificent.”

He smirks. He’s so pleased at her comment that he doesn’t bother mentioning how swallowed she is in that t shirt.

She’s quick to revert back to adventure mode and ride the momentum. “Where are we headed?” she asks, while pressing all the correct buttons and flipping switches.

It turns out, they’re going back two million years to see the beginnings of one of the universe’s oldest mining corporations.

Three moons orbit a grey shadowy planet, each producing different colored diamonds in abundance.

“That’s not even the best part,” he says when her jaw drops at the carts of crude gems being wheeled out from the caves. The carts are primitive and muddy, but she’s hypnotized by the shine of yellow diamonds when the a faraway star illuminates them. He doesn’t answer questions about what can possibly top that.

They take a tourism ship from the third moon to the planet, and land just when the wind begins to pick up. The Doctor refuses to take the bus, insisting the walk is worth it since he’d go mad listening to other tourists chatter on and on.

The wind is strong; her feet are being lifted from the hard ground. She laughs in delight. Only when she’s lifted several feet up the air and her hair obscures her vision does she panic a little. He grabs her ankle and pulls her down. She used to feel a twinge of guilt at seeing his worried face, but this time she can’t conjure those feelings. She smiles widely at his exasperated sigh.

She’s still being swayed by the wind and he stands with no difficulty.

“How come it doesn’t affect you?”

He shows her the soles of his boots. “This thing here, see? I had special stickers pasted on.”

“Of course,” she replies, because she didn’t know what kind of answer she expected. “Stickers.”

He lets her teasing go. “Do try not to get separated. Again,” he grouches, and puts his hands in his pockets.

“I won’t,” she promises. _Ever._ The winds are picking up again, dust is flying all round them. She links her arm with his and he keeps her from being swept away.

“Got any more of those stickers?” she loves being close to him like this, but she isn’t sure how long he can tolerate the physical proximity.

“Not a single one.”

He doesn’t complain the entire two hours it takes to walk to the central mining town, and he never lets her go.

**

For once, there isn’t someone to save, or a someone getting trapped and crying for help. He does settle a bar fight, though, if the shack between two dead trees could be called an establishment of any sort. Clara’s bringing two glasses of water to their table when she spies the Doctor pushing a stool between two screaming miners and silencing them.

“Will they be okay?” she asks as the larger one starts turning red and oozing purple.

“Quite so,” he drawls. “They’ll heal within the next twelve hours and have no bruises or scarring.”

He flips psychic paper at the barkeep to get out of paying.

They visit a small market with a total of 5 vendors selling bare necessities. When he’s busy inspecting the table of miner’s tools, she wanders back to the first tent they passed and barters for something that resembles a sandwich. She returns to him, offering half of their only meal in a day. His face lights up. “Ah, dust lizards. Good choice, they’re packed with nutrients.”

“You still haven’t told me what’s so special about this place,” she says between bites. Dust lizards don't taste too bad.

“Azbantium! In abundance, right now, before the civil uprising.” He’s so excited he forgets to eat, just waves the food around. “You thought the diamonds were cool, but, Clara, what if I told you that this substance is four hundred times as tough? If you scratched this with a diamond, it would take thousands of years to make a dent.”

“How come we haven’t seen it then?”

“Soon,” he promises. “It’s deep down near the core.”

He brings her to the edges of the town, along the way describing the planet and it’s atmosphere and explaining why the wind picks up so heavily. They arrive at a dark spiraling hole in the ground. “There are lights along the way,” he says. “They don’t mind observers much. The people are a hardworking bunch...well, until the corp cuts their wages. But no matter.”

That’s a story he’ll tell her later, she supposes. The walkway down is smooth, not at all what she expected. He unwraps the lunch he forgot to eat, and just when he’s about to take a bite, they turn and find a child.

“Hello,” he says pleasantly. The girl glances at them and smiles. She looks down at her feet.

“Children are taught not to make eye contact,” he explains. He bends down. “If you’re here, we must be close to the others. But why are you alone?”

The girl nods. “I am to get lunch for my brother and I,” she whispers.

“How?” Clara asks. “The town is pretty far. We walked for quite some time.”

The girl shrugs.

“Here,” The Doctor hands the girl his dust lizards. “Think of it as a snack for the walk.”

She looks up, still avoiding their faces, and smiles, showing her toothless mouth. He pats her head.

He’s ready to move on, but the girl doesn’t budge. “What is it?” he asks. “Do you not like it, or do you have allergies or something equally annoying?”

She mimics eating the wrapped package, and puts it in her pocket. From there, she also takes out a tiny grey circle. “How gorgeous,” he says, kneeling down to examine it in the girl’s palm. She holds it up to him as an offering. “Is this for me?”

The girl points at her pocket, and nods. She’s gone after she drops the circle in the Doctor’s palm and heads out to the surface.

“Look at you, you big softie,” Clara helps him up for no reason other than she wants to hold him, touch him in some way. He takes out a handkerchief and begins cleaning dust away. The spots he focuses on start to shine. “Azbantium, Clara.”

It’s nothing like the diamonds she saw on the three moons. The clouds on this planet were dark and Clara hasn’t seen the sun for half a day now, but the few clear spots are brilliantly reflecting what little there is. It’s simultaneously clear and cloudy, but she can see her reflection on it, and the side of his face looking back at her through it.

He rubs the rest of the dirt off.

“She traded you this for half a sandwich, basically?”

“Do you know why this planet is so perfect?” he’s not waiting for her to answer. “Those who inhabit this solar system are willing to work for the criminal wages, and most importantly, have no use for this even though others go to war for it. For now, it’s abundant.”

She’s entranced by the colors in it.

“They’re scarce on plants, animals.” he continues. “The dust kills everything.”

The circle isn’t just a circle, it’s a ring forged entirely of azbantium. He holds it between his fingers and says, “All yours.”

“But that girl gave it to you!” Honestly, Clara wants to keep it. The band reflects the red of his coat nicely; she wonders how it would shine if she brought it out in space and let it soak in sunlight.

“She gave it to me for the food that you bought us,” he says. He places it in her palm and squeezes. “Keep it.”

*

As they approach voices grow louder but still unintelligible. “It’s bad manners to talk loudly, so hush now.” He pretends to zip his lips.

The miners allow them to observe. When Clara walks too close to the stone wall embedded with bits of azbantium, they motion for her to stay in the safe zone marked in white and offer her a small jug of water. She waves her hand in refusal as politely as she can, and detects a spark of amusement in their eyes when they spot the ring on her pinky.

It could be that he gave it to her as a way to make up for their separation. She thinks about it, and concludes that it isn’t so bad. She’d like to invest in a souvenir box and fill it up with trinkets.

Mining is actually uneventful, since there are bits of azbantium everywhere. The brilliance of it winds up hurting her eyes eventually. He is, naturally, unaffected. She watches the team of miners fill carts and pulley it to the surface over and over. The entire cave is gorgeous, but all she can think of is how this morning, she prepared to spend the upcoming year alone.

“I’m bored,” he declares, stretching dramatically. She knows that he’ll get antsier as the minutes tick by, and more susceptible to causing trouble.

“Agreed,” she says. “Maybe a few more minutes.” She remembers being thrown into life or death situations, but Clara realizes the months alone altered her mindset. She likes this new experience where she knows their lives aren’t threatened, and they can sit languidly and watch time go by, together.

“We can go to a city constructed entirely of azbantium,” he suggests. She pretends to think about it and he rolls his eyes.

“Come on, then,” she smiles and flashes the ring at him.

**

He miscalculates, and they do wind up in the future, but they’re two hundred years off mark. The moment his skin touches the air, he freezes and holds an arm out to keep her behind.

“This isn’t a good time. The air is all metal and fire.” he says that, but he’s curiously touching the surroundings and observing. They’ve thankfully landed inside a building. Clara heads to the window at the end of the hallway where there’s smoke billowing from the ground. She hardly notices the unique structure of an azbantium apartment complex.

The streets are empty of civilians. Instead, fully armored soldiers march up and down the roads.

“War,” he murmurs behind her. He gazes outside. “Within the next two weeks ninety percent of the population is eviscerated, all to lay claim on this city and convert it to a fortress.”

She tugs at his the cuff of his sleeve. “Can’t we do something?”

He’s stony faced and starting to close off from her. “This has to happen. There are thousands of events that occur after this that I could never dream of changing. Think of this as a prerequisite,” he says. “But we’re safe. They just want to empty the city of natives.”

“The miners, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

The buildings stay intact, but hoards of families are rounded up, some resisting and screaming.

“Let’s come back another time,” she turns around. The TARDIS is parked down the hallway, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from outside. She tugs more insistently. “Come on.”

She waits for him to move. When he stays still and frozen, she slips her hand in his. “Doctor, let’s go.”

*

The TARDIS lights are dim, apparently on a candlelight setting. She notices he has more books than before piled in the corners. He’s been quiet and moody since she guided him back into the control room. Once the doors shut and clicked, he automatically typed in new coordinates for home, her home, and sat.

She suddenly needs to get out of her dusty clothes. The TARDIS is still being stubborn and not allowing the corridors to lead into her old room, so she changes back into her whorly dress. Clara keeps the ring on. It’s one of the few tangible things he’s ever given her; she intends to keep it close.

There’s a new couch next to his bookshelves. It’s old and gilded around the edges, probably stolen from a palace library somewhere, and he has a book open on his lap, though she hardly thinks he’s reading. His coat is draped on the empty side.

“Doctor,” she whispers.

He doesn’t look up, but makes space for her. She settles down, shivering at the sensation of cold metal against her back. Wordlessly, he drapes his coat over her shoulders.

“How’s the book?” It’s a lame conversation starter, but he isn’t making it easy.

“It’s fine,” he says.

Okay, she gets it. They don’t have to talk about it in this moment; conversations like these always come up sooner or later with them.

“I can’t read anymore,” he huffs. He lets the book fall from his hand and land on the floor.

“Then don’t. I was going to go to bed and sleep. Aren’t you tired?”

“Do you want to go home to sleep?” he asks, instead of answering.

“I was thinking I’d stay here.” He’s silent again. “If you’d like,” she adds.

He scoffs. “If I like…course I’m fine with it.”

“Okay, then.”

His coat is lined on the inside; it’s warm and still carries the faint smell of grass. Before she realizes, she’s snuggling into it.

“We’ll go somewhere more fun next time,” he promises. “I was playing it safe, but it still went awry.”

“I’m fine with anything.” She’s not just here for the action and running around. Hopefully he knows that by now. He adjusts his coat on her, smoothing out wrinkles and buttoning the top so it doesn’t slide off. She takes her chance and grabs his hand when he’s fixing the collar.

She presses a hard kiss on the back of his hand. They’ve skirted around the issue before, hiding behind excuses and pretending not to notice when the other flirts. From the way the day has gone, she’s absolutely sure how he feels. She cradles his hand in hers, watches the hues of the TARDIS bounce off her ring.

“Clara,” he breathes. She’s dizzy - being here in the blue box she never thought she would set foot in again and being surrounded by him everywhere, velvet, grass, his fingertips touching her face -

He cups the back of her neck, draws her in, and finally, after all this time, bends down and kisses her.

She just begins to process that this Doctor, who at first could barely hold her hand for more than twenty seconds instigated this, when he moves away and exhales into the space between them. Clara knows the question he’s silently asking _-_ _Is this okay? Did I make a mistake?_

She hauls herself up and clutches his shirt. “You’re so daft,” she mutters against his lips. When she presses their lips together, she feels the curve of his smile. It’s the first time she’s ever felt electrified from kissing someone - a full body shudder ripples through her and she parts her lips in shock. When he tilts her head and returns the kiss, she experiences the sensation of falling so viciously that she throws her arms around his waist for support.

Clara remembers she has to be delicate with him; it’s taken him decades to quietly admit he can stand touching her and being close with her. The Doctor likes to keep affected restrained, even when he’s brimming with it, so this surpasses any hope she ever had. Still, she doesn’t want him to feel intimidated and think they’re moving too fast, so she pulls away.

He brushes one final kiss on her forehead.

“I’m too tired to make it to bed,” she sighs.

His response is to drape an arm over her shoulder. She leans her head on his collarbones and closes her eyes.

Her dress is riding up from sitting, and his coat is so long she can feel the lining against her bare thigh. He runs his fingers through her hair, twirling the ends. She’s being sent off to sleep by the rhythmic beat of one of his hearts and the background lull of the engine.

“Clara?” he asks.

She stirs. “What?”

“What do you think about waking up to tea with Jane?”

"That'll do," she murmurs.


End file.
